


Things That Go Bump in the Night

by MachaSWicket



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 17:50:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5384798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MachaSWicket/pseuds/MachaSWicket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SUMMARY:  <i>Felicity is in no way prepared to physically fend off any sort of attack on whoever is screaming bloody murder, but she’s heading for the door anyway. Apparently, she’s not the kind of person who can sit in her locked apartment and listen to someone... well, maybe </i>actually being murdered<i> next door</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things That Go Bump in the Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mersayseh](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=mersayseh).



> THANKS to fanmommer for making me write the thing. ;)

 

Hoarse shouting wakes her.

Not quickly or well, but the shouts drag her out of a sound sleep. Felicity is not good at waking up in the morning, at her alarm’s prompting, after eight solid hours of sleep. Under those circumstances, she is groggy and grumpy and kind of incoherent.

Which is worlds better than she is now -– sitting upright in her bed, sluggish thoughts whirling through her brain, disoriented in the darkness. Because  _who_  is screaming? And  _why_?

By rote, she reaches for her glasses, shoving them awkwardly into place and blinking, but of course, it’s  _dark_ , and her glasses can’t help her with that.

The shouting continues, sporadic and somehow desperate? It’s scary and confusing, sending shivering panic down her spine, and she’s fumbling for her phone as she nearly topples out of bed. She feels wide awake and still stubbornly asleep, and the contradiction makes everything even more surreal. She is in no way prepared to physically fend off any sort of attack on whoever is screaming bloody murder, but she’s heading for the door anyway. Apparently, she’s not the kind of person who can sit in her locked apartment and listen to someone... well, maybe  _actually being_   _murdered_.

Quickly, she dials 911. She slips a little, her fuzzy socks sliding along the hardwood floors more than usual. Probably because her body is still half-asleep and, therefore, only half-listening to her commands as she careens through her apartment. She should be cold in the chilly night air, wearing only a threadbare tank top, shorts, and her fuzzy socks, but the adrenaline surge is making her feel overly warm.

The phone rings twice as she doubles back to grab the disappointingly lightweight saucepan sitting on her stove.

“911, what’s your emergency?” asks a surprisingly bored voice.

“Oh!” Felicity says, nearly braining herself with the saucepan as she halts quickly just inside her front door. “Yes, hello, hi. There’s someone screaming in the apartment next to mine. Please hurry.” She rattles off her address, yanks the door open, and hangs up on the emergency operator.

Though it’s –- it’s quiet now, she realizes. Trembling a little bit from all the adrenaline, she pauses on the threshold to weigh her options.

Another shout, and this time it sounds like a very desperate “No!”

With renewed determination to do...  _something_ to help, she rushes to her neighbor’s door. She refuses to let herself panic that “help” currently consists of one relatively uncoordinated and rather petite 24-year-old armed with a saucepan. ( _Is_  it a saucepan? she wonders; she’s not much of a cook, and her pretty lime green pots and pans are mostly just dust-gathering design elements.)

“Not important,” she mutters, kneeling in front of his door.

Part of the reason Felicity chose this apartment complex is the electronic locks, requiring a passcode instead of an actual key. She had, of course, promptly upgraded hers, but Mr. Stupidly Hot in 7B has not –- once she plugs her phone into the electronic lock, it takes her only a few seconds before the tumblers click open.

Shaking a little with nerves, she gets back to her feet and pushes the door open. It’s dark inside, and while she suspects the layout of his place is the exact same as hers, she can’t actually tell. “Hello?” she half-shouts into the darkness of his apartment. He’s not screaming anymore –- in fact, there aren’t really any noises at all, and she is suddenly convinced she was imagining things. Auditory hallucinations are a thing, right? “That’s gonna be hard to explain to the cops,” she mutters, glancing reflexively towards the elevator at the end of the hall.

But no one is here yet -– it’s still just her, doing a little light B&E to maybe save her hot neighbor from the...  _whatever_. How hard can that be?

Her knees are feeling a little unsteady, like if she thinks too much about how they’re supposed to work, they’ll just give way and she’ll topple onto the ground. Also, her breathing is too fast, and unsteady, and she can barely hear all the new silence over the pounding of her pulse except now there’s –- is someone  _moaning_?

“HELLO?” she yells, in her loud voice. There’s a startled noise somewhere further in the apartment, followed by rustling sounds, and then Felicity is _panicking_ , because someone’s coming, and she’s got like a fifty-fifty shot of it being her poor, injured (handsome) neighbor, or a bad guy who was just trying to kill him, and she is in her pajamas and untrained and holding a  _saucepan_ –-

A large figure comes hurtling towards her, and Felicity shrieks and lurches to the side, but she is nowhere near fast enough to avoid the  _solid_  mass that runs right into her, trapping her against the wall between some really big arms. He’s huge and breathing hard and he smells, like,  _really_  good, which is a weird thing to notice, but her nose is basically in his chest, and it’s not like she can  _move_ –-

“Get off!” she yelps, her voice high and thready and scared, and she is definitely not a hero, because all she can do is panic and flail the sauce pan around, landing glancing blows on the huge, scary man who–-

She freezes, blinking up at his familiar face, illuminated by the light from the hallway.

It’s her neighbor.

Holy shit, she’s whacking her (hot) neighbor with a lime green saucepan, and how is this  _even_  her life?

“Felicity?” he asks, his voice rough and low, and he’s still breathing heavily.

“Um,” she answers. Because –- he knows her name? That’s... new information. And mildly horrifying, considering now he can tell this embarrassing story about the crazy chick with the saucepan to all his friends and use her  _real name_.

“I didn’t–-” He stops, shakes his head, stepping back from where he has her caged in and pressed against the wall, and he is wearing lightweight pajama bottoms, slung low across his hips, and a snug grey t-shirt that does nothing to obscure the  _impressive_  lines of his body. When she drags her gaze back to his face, he’s studying her. “I didn’t know you wore glasses.”

She blinks at him, because he intense handsomeness of his face isn’t much better in terms of her ability to string words into coherency. “I have astigmatism,” she answers. Then wrinkles her nose at the absurdity of this entire situation.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, his gaze dropping briefly to her body. His brow furrows, and his mouth turns down just a little, and, yikes, does that do terrible things for her self-esteem.

“I’m saving you,” she says, shifting uncomfortably under his curious gaze. “I mean, there was some shouting, so I figured I should come stop it. Unless that was you.” He gives her a very puzzled look. “Not like loud sex shouting,” she explains quickly, and there’s heat in her cheeks as she gamely soldiers on. “I mean, I thought I should save you if you were the one being attacked, but if you’re actually the, you know, attack- _er_ , then I have... maybe... made a bad decision.” She purses her lips for a moment, wondering if she’s talking him into murdering her. “For me,” she clarifies unnecessarily, and why can’t she  _stop talking_? “Not for the theoretical person that you were maybe torturing in there?” He flinches, and her eyes go very, very wide as she tries to step back. “I should–-”

“It was me,” he interrupts. “Shouting,” he adds, lifting a placating hand towards her. “Not... there’s no one else here.”

“Oh,” she answers dumbly. She wants to ask him why he was shouting, if he’s okay, but there’s a guardedness to his expression that warns her off. So she shifts the saucepan to her left hand and hooks her right thumb in the direction of the still-open door. “I should-–”

“I have nightmares sometimes,” he says quietly. And maybe reluctantly. It’s hard to tell in the dim light from the hallway. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

“No, don’t-–” She pauses, tries to figure out what she should be saying. “No need to apologize. I’m just relieved no one’s being,” she pauses, substituting “murdered” at the last moment. Because he really didn’t react well to her earlier reference to torture. There’s still something tense in his expression, though, so she takes another step to the side, easing towards the door. “Okay. Well–-”

“Is that– Did you come in here armed with a  _saucepan_?” he asks

Felicity glances reflexively at the weaponized kitchenware in her grip. “Yes.”

Mr. Stupidly Hot Who Apparently Has Night Terrors tilts his head, shaking it ever so slightly as he watches her. “Why?”

She shrugs, and he glances momentarily at her chest, then meets her gaze, pressing his lips together as he waits for an answer. “I don’t have a baseball bat,” she blurts.

He huffs a breath, and from the almost-smile on his face and the way his shoulders relax incrementally, she thinks maybe that’s his version of a laugh. Warmth blooms in her chest at the idea, because he’s unfairly good-looking, but considering the apparent trauma of his nightmares -– well, she thinks maybe laughter is kind of rare in his life.

She grins back at him, searching for something to say to him, but the faint ding of the elevator is immediately followed by heavy footfalls, and her eyes go very, very wide. “Oh!”

There’s a blur of movement, and before Felicity understands what’s happening, Mr. Stupidly Hot tugs her around behind him and steps back, putting himself between her and–-

“They’re cops!” she yelps, tapping his shoulder blade to make sure he hears her. “I called 911. Because of the possible murdering.” And then, on instinct, she drops the saucepan to the floor with a loud clatter and lifts her free hand into the air, like she’s in a freaking movie or something.

The hallway is bright behind the man who appears in the doorway, and there are no lights on inside the apartment, so all Felicity can see around Oliver’s shoulder is the large silhouette of a uniformed body. And the unmistakable shape of a gun held in one hand, down near his thigh. “SCPD,” the outline announces. “We got a call about a domestic disturbance. Are there any weapons on the premises?”

Mr. Stupidly Hot keeps her hand holding her cellphone in his, holding her in place behind him. “Everything is fine,” he says slowly. “Please holster your weapon.”

“Sir,” the voice repeats, more loudly now, “we’re going to need to talk to your girlfriend before–-”

“Oh,” Felicity interrupts, gripping a handful of his soft cotton t-shirt in her free hand. She lifts up on her tiptoes to peer over his shoulder. “I’m not his girlfriend. And this isn’t–-”

“Please,” her hot neighbor repeats, “holster your weapons. We’re both unarmed. This is a misunderstanding, and–-”

“Sir! Hands out to the sides,” the cop orders, and then an incredibly bright flashlight is trained on them, and even behind her neighbor, Felicity winces at the light. Whatever panic she was feeling before with the whole neighbor-possibly-being-murdered thing is back, because this cop seems a little unnerved and he’s got a gun in his hand, and this could go really, really badly.

“He’s not a threat,” Felicity says, stepping slowly out from behind him, squinting into the brightness. “Let’s just calm down.”

But her neighbor moves to shield her from the light again, squeezing her hand in his. Which kind of hurts a bit, since her hand is wrapped around the unforgiving case protecting her cellphone. “Hang on,” he says over his shoulder to her, then to the cop, “Let me get her a shirt.”

“Sir!” the cop repeats.

“What?” Felicity asks, puzzled.

But Mr. Stupidly Hot finally lets go of her hand. And then he’s tugging his shirt off, and  _goddamn_  his body is a scarred, tattooed work of art, even mostly backlit. He turns to face her, catches her eye, and offers the shirt to her.

Frowning, Felicity says, “Why are you–-?” But when she glances down, she remembers  _so_  very belatedly that the faded purple tank top she’d worn to bed is thin and essentially see through. And that’s  _without_  the assistance of a megawatt flashlight beam. “Oh,” she whispers, cheeks burning. “Thank you.” She spins away from him, barely resisting the urge to face-palm over her stupidity. Instead, she tosses her phone onto the bookshelf beside her and pulls on the warm cotton t-shirt; it’s several sizes too big for her and still warm from his body. She steadfastly ignores all the images her imagination is trying to conjure of  _other_  circumstances under which she’d be pulling his clothes on.

When she is covered up and spins back around, her hot neighbor is waiting, still watching her with an unreadable look. “Okay?” He doesn’t move until she nods. Then he turns, glowering into the flashlight’s glare. “Would you turn that thing off? No one is hurt. No one is armed.”

Felicity moves to his side, holding her hands away from her body, palms toward the floor. “Sir, I’m the one who called 911, and I’m afraid it was a misunderstanding. I thought maybe someone was being hurt but–-” She stops talking, because, honestly, the way he’d admitted to her that he had nightmares definitely didn’t suggest she should go out and tell the world about it.

A large palm lands briefly on her shoulder, and she glances up at her neighbor, who’s stepping towards the police officer, offering his right hand to shake. “Hi, I’m Oliver Queen,” he says, and finally,  _finally_  the painfully bright flashlight beam is averted from their faces. “I apologize for the confusion. I didn’t realize I had the movie turned up that loud.”

Felicity tries very, very hard not to react, but her hot neigh–- but  _Oliver_ is a terrible liar. Just awful. When she ducks her chin to hide her disbelief, she can smell the faint scent of him in his t-shirt –- mellow and woodsy. She gets a little lost in that while the two men talk, the cop finally,  _finally_ holstering his weapon, and then asking some really dumb questions about the “movie” that Oliver was “watching.”

Oliver’s answers are just as obviously lies as the initial cover story, but the cop doesn’t seem to notice. There’s something about the way Oliver interacts with the cop, something artificial and...  _glib_. It’s the first time since the moment he stepped back from trapping her against the wall that she’s felt...  _uneasy_  about him.

“Everything okay with you, ma’am?” the cop asks.

She jerks her gaze up to his, and now that Oliver’s flipped on a table lamp, she can see the officer’s face. He’s definitely young, and seems genuinely concerned. “Me?” she squeaks. She stops, clears her throat, tries again. “Oh, yes. I’m fine.”

There’s a long beat of silence, and then the cop nods, stepping back a bit into the hallway. “If you’re both sure.” He lets the offer linger in the air, like he expects one of them to finally come clean about –- well, Felicity’s not sure what, exactly, the officer thinks is going on here.

“Definitely sure,” she says. “Sorry to trouble you.”

“No trouble at all, ma’am,” he says, taking another step back.

“Thank you, Officer,” Oliver says, and he moves to his apartment door, only closing it when the cop turns his back and heads for the elevator. Then he freezes and turns back towards Felicity. “How did you get in my apartment?”

“Oh, these electronic locks are  _super_  hackable,” she explains, waving her hand in the general direction of the device. “You should fix that. Or, I mean, I can if you want? It’s not hard.”

“You...  _hacked_  my lock?” he says, and she can’t tell if he’s amused or angry.

“I’m a hacker,” she says. “But I should–-” She stops, glances around for the strange assortment of things she brought over to defend him from imaginary criminals. She reaches for her phone. “I should go.”

“Felicity?”

There’s something about the way he says her name that just... tips her off-balance. “Mmmm?”

This time, he actually does smile, and it makes his eyes crinkle a little, and, God, if she didn’t already want to climb him like a tree, she  _does now_. “Thank you,” he says.

Felicity blinks. “You’re welcome,” she answers a little breathlessly. They stare at each other for a long, strangely charged moment, and then Felicity remembers she’s wearing his clothes. She plucks at the hem, and his intense gaze drops to her body. “Can I-–?”

“Keep it,” he interrupts, his voice low and a little growly.

She nods a little too much, a little too enthusiastically, and she’s pretty sure she looks like an idiot. She  _knows_  she’s blushing, trying hard not to think about the eyeful he’d gotten earlier. “Thank you,” she says. “For the shirt.”

He gives her another one of those smiles, and then opens the door for her. She takes two steps towards him when his eyebrow lifts and he asks, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

She freezes and stares at him. “No?” she wonders.

His voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper when he says, “Your weapon.”

“Oh! Yes. Right.” Felicity whirls around and spots her poor, abandoned saucepan on the floor several feet away. “Just gonna grab this,” she says, leaning forward and then halting abruptly, because his t-shirt is barely covering the edges of her sleep shorts, and she  _knows_  her sleep shorts do not fully cover her ass if she bends over. Instead, she awkwardly bends sideways and crouches a little to grab her saucepan from the floor, 

There’s a noise that sounds almost like a groan from behind her, and she turns quickly, holding her saucepan to her chest. “I should go,” she murmurs, offering him one last smile before she moves past him into the hallway.

“Good night, Felicity,” he says, and she would swear he adds “Sweet dreams,” in a soft voice, but when she glances back, he’s already retreated into his apartment.

Still, she doesn’t hear the click of his door shutting until she’s safely back in her apartment. She exhales, letting some of the tension out. And then she grins, dipping her chin to her chest and inhaling the warm scent of Oliver, her hot, damaged neighbor.

“Well, that was unexpected,” she mutters, heading back to her bedroom. It takes her a while to settle down, but finally, an hour or so later, she falls back asleep. And she sleeps soundly for several hours, well past her normal waking time on a Saturday.

It’s nearly ten when she finally makes it out of the shower and into her clothes, and heads out into the world for coffee. When she opens her apartment door, something clatters to the ground, startling her so badly that she yelps and jumps backwards, one hand pressed to her chest.

A baseball bat is lying on her floor, with a crooked purple bow and a note. She’s beaming at the gift even before she bends over to pick it up. Her hands shake as she unfolds the note. It says,

_Now you have a bat. Thanks for saving me from my nightmares._

_-Oliver_

“Is it weird to hug a bat?” she wonders, but she presses the smooth wood to her chest for a long moment anyway.

Ten minutes later, when she re-emerges from her apartment on the hunt for coffee, she can’t quite keep the smile off of her face.

END

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this OTP prompt](http://machawicket.tumblr.com/post/134555107652/otpprompts-imagine-person-a-having-a-nightmare): Imagine Person A having a nightmare in the dead of night and screaming as loud as they can and Person B rushing over from the apartment across the hall in just their underwear. They calm down Person A and Person A seems to be more surprised that Person B wears glasses and looks hot in them than the fact that they’re almost nude.


End file.
